Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Tutorial: 3D Pop up Balloon card

I was recently directed to a blog titled Valita's Fresh Folds. She has a cute balloon card she got from another source. I thought I'd make a smaller version to fit in a standard 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" envelope and share it with you!

First, let me show you what I came up with for the outside of the card. I cut strips of leftover paper using the same colors as the balloons on the inside of the card. (I love using up scraps!) The colored strips were mounted with foam tape to add visual interest. A simple stamp from the "Card Chatter--Birthday" stamp set, inked in black, finished the front. But let's get to the card base and the inside----the really fun part!

Fold your cardstock: Mountain, valley, mountain, valley, mountain. Notice how the folds stack together in your hand, as if you were starting to make a paper fan from your childhood. Lay the paper back out on the table and add a strip of Tacky Tape to the inside of the last two score lines. Remove the pink backing and refold the card base.

Flip the card open to the inside. You will see that two folded strips have formed in the middle. Add a strip of Tacky Tape to the inside of both strips like this.

Remove the pink backing. Add your balloons, cutting the acetate at varying lengths to make some balloons appear higher than other ones. After adding your balloons, pinch the two folds together to sandwich the balloons neatly in between.

Note:

I used my Cricut cartridge "Celebrations" to cut out the balloons, using paper from the local Michael's. Why not CTMH paper? I had twenty cards worth of balloons to create and decided to make good use of paper from my pre-CTMH days.

1/8" strips of acetate were sandwiched between two balloon cutouts to create one clean-looking balloon. (If you don't have acetate, re-purpose food packaging to achieve the same look.)

13 comments:

What a cute and creative blog Tabatha. You're definitely a girl after my own heart. You may really enjoy the following links if you haven't seen them before. I was playing around with making them a lot yesterday and had a lot of fun.http://blog.robertscrafts.com/2011/03/birthday-cards-that-flip-move-slide.htmlorhttp://simplykellyb.blogspot.com/p/studio-5.html

Really neat card! I saw it on Pinterest & had to come take a closer look. Thank you so much for the tutorial! I plan on making a card like this for a friend's birthday next month. It should be easy with your clear directions. :) ~ Andrea

The balloons were created using a craft punch. Unfortunately, I no longer have it so I can only guess on the size. I suspect they are 1". Your local scrapbook or craft store may have a balloon shaped punch or using a product such as Cricut personal cutting systems may offer a solution for you. Good luck!